Last week my phone rang sitting on my computer and I saw that it was the day care centre where the little man goes. My heart skipped a beat as I knew it wasn’t going to be good news; and it wasn’t.

He’d had a truck/trike accident and come off second best. He loves running around pushing a tonka truck with his head down as fast as he can. He was doing this and came around a corner where another child was on the trike and didn’t stop, even though he saw the little man coming.

There was a crash and the little man somersaulted over the tonka truck I believe and landed on his face. He was apparently glazed over for a few minutes and then quite dizzy when he stood up.

When they rang me he was having a green icy stick and cuddling Pooh Bear so he had calmed down. I decided to ring the doctors and leave work. The girls all said I was going to get a shock when I saw him and to prepare myself. Well you can imagine the thoughts going through my head at this point.

I arrived to find him sleeping with a graze around his left eye and a fat lip. Not as bad as I had thought at all. It took a bit to wake him up and off to the doctors we went. All good there with no depressed fracture!! That thought hadn’t even crossed my mind…..

His lip got bigger as the night wore on and I thought he might have gotten a black eye but he didn’t.

got the look down pat!

swollen eye

bike ride with pouty lip again

The next morning he was fascinated with the ‘circle’ that had appeared on his lip. From how the accident was told to me I think he was a very lucky boy and it is nearly all healed now.

I find that every Monday night I can’t be bothered with dinner for the little man or myself. I don’t know why but I hate Monday nights and trying to think of what we will have for dinner! Anyone else feel this way??

You guessed it last night was Monday night and when I picked up the little man after I finished work and his day at care I thought “urgh what are we having for dinner?” The little man wanted chops but we’d had them the night before so I said no and he then said number spaghetti. I thought done you can have that and it is quick and easy to boot.

Then I thought what am I going to have???? Was thinking bad food then decided I’d make a pasta sauce with some ingredients I had in the fridge.

So I gathered up bacon, mushrooms, lemon, and semi sun dried tomatoes. I thought how am I going to do this and then didn’t worry how it turned out as only me eating it.

I cut the bacon, sliced the mushrooms, zested the lemon and chopped the semi sun dried tomatoes and pine nuts. Add it all to a frypan with some oil from the tomato jar as well as the juice from the zested lemon and hey presto there was my pasta sauce for the night. Not the healthiest but not the worst kind of sauce either. Stirred through wholemeal pasta with some parmesan on top and it wasn’t too bad, except I burnt it a bit as I was getting the little man’s dinner ready…..

Cook bacon in frypan add the mushrooms and tomatoes with some oil from the jar, zest the lemon, add half the juice and reduce. Add the pine nuts and cracked pepper and then the other half of the lemon juice. Done!

How do you help a friend who has just found out she has a really bad form of breast cancer and is also going through a messy separation and custody hearing right this instant?!

I have told her I will do anything for her except vomit – never been good with it but improving now I have the little man to deal with when he is sick. I will wash, clean, shop, bake, fold, iron, pick up/drop off her kids to care, take them to the park and absolutely anything else that she may require during this time but I still feel like it may not be enough. I would even go wig shopping with her if she wanted me to.

I’m staying positive when I am with her but feel like crumbling when alone as no one deserves this and especially a mother of two adorable boys who are not even school age. My sister in laws sister (get that?) was diagnosed about 4 years ago when she was breastfeeding her youngest and due to her living in Sydney I didn’t have a lot to do with her but remember hearing the stories from my brother or sister in law.

It is harrowing.

I will stay as strong as possible for her but I’m sure there will be times when we will have a cry together as well which will be good for both of us.

She had a heap of scans on Friday and waiting to get the results this week as well as in court this week to sort out the custody of her kids with her ex. Talk about everything happening at once in her life!!

If anybody out there knows of some great things to do for someone who is ill please let me know or what to take with you whilst you are having chemo etc…. I have some ideas but not sure what is right or wrong on this situation.

Found this in my drafts so slightly out of date whack but here it is never the less!!!

We had a jam packed family weekend as my brother and nephew were over from Perth for a football game and we caught up with them at my nephew’s game as well as breakfast the next morning. The little man was so excited to see both of them he kept calling out to both during the game which was very sweet.

cousins

breakfast with Buzz as well

When we returned home from breakfast I decided there was no TV on and he was not happy about this so I suggested making a cubby over the dining table. He said no but I still went and got a sheet from the linen press and took it out to him. He decided it was going to be over the couches instead and I had to make sure there were two doors and a window! He isn’t demanding at all is he???

So I swished the sheet over the couches, placed his little table and chairs under there and he went and got some toys to entertain himself. Best hour and a half of my life as he was so engrossed I got to read the paper and some of my book uninterrupted!!! Yay for me!!

cubby

checking out his goodies

some of said goodies

I will be storing this idea away in the old memory bank and pulling it out again as the little man thought it was great!

OMG! My heart was in my throat on Sunday before my body could react to what had just occurred. Thankfully my dad was not as slow to react as me and all was fine.

The little man said he wanted to see nanna and grandpa on Sunday morning when he woke up so I rang to see if they were going to be home and that we would be popping out if that was ok. All good so we got ourselves ready into the car and off on the 50 minute drive to their house.

When we arrived he just wanted to play with the toys that are there and nothing else. So we posed the question of feeding the ducks at Ringwood Lake. He thought this would be fun and off we went.

Arriving at the Lake we had to park in an area that had been fertilised recently and the little man kept saying “why can I smell animal poo?” “Animal poo stinks and it is yucky!” Once we cleared the smelly area all was good and we could see the ducks on the lake.

We had three pieces of bread to feed the ducks and out on the deck we ventured. To begin with he was throwing the tiniest pieces of bread to the ducks that they couldn’t even see the motion or the ripple in the water. I showed him what size to break off and watch them come to us. He loved it and we had mentioned not to get too close to the edge as no fence and to be careful.

After getting a bit zealous with his throwing of his bread the unthinkable happened, well in hindsight probably not that unthinkable, he did a big throw and followed the bread in the water.

I’m standing there thinking I have bags in my hands and do I strip off to jump in after him blah blah blah going through my head. Whilst I’m thinking this my dad is on his tummy reaching in the water to grab my little man and pull him up. I am still thinking am I going to have to get in there because I’m not a great swimmer and it’s going to be bloody freezing!!!! How deep is it as well due to being out on the deck???

Dad got him and pulled him out of the water, not a mean feat mind you as he had on boots and a thick pullover due to having a cold and asthma so this added to his normal weight of around 22kgs. He was so good and more in shock than anything else and freezing of course!! He didn’t panic and he didn’t thrash about, mind you it literally happened in the blink of an eye. He kept saying “I fell into the dirty duck water.” All I wanted to do was cuddle the heck out of him but he was soaking wet.

As we walked back to the car he kept saying that he had fallen into the dirty duck water and then added that they had hit him on his head with their feet! I think it might have been his Grandpa trying to get a grip of him.

As the day wore on the story of his fall got bigger and bigger, which was very cute.

Can’t tell you how grateful I am to my dad and that my little man was ok and didn’t seem to have any side effects from his impromptu swim on the dirty duck water.

I finally got to go and see Monet at the NGV in Melbourne the other Friday night with a girlfriend. We had been talking about it since it first opened and I think we attended the week before it closed!! Nothing like cutting it fine…..

It was a light rainy night in this great city of ours and the queue was longer than I had expected, luckily I had pre booked tickets on line so we were able to ‘jump’ the queue. We decided to have a glass of champers before seeing the exhibition so that we could have a quick catch up and relax before wondering around.

We finally entered the exhibition and we were surprised at the number of paintings there that we had never seen before and how when Monet liked an image he certainly grabbed hold of it and painted a number of paintings on that image. Lily pads were definitely a favourite of his! Mind you they were all slightly different and amazing!! He painted some portraits of his family as well which were interesting as I never knew he had done this.

When he had eye issues his whole style changed from pastels to dark reds/oranges and the brush strokes changed of a light dab feel to strong harsh strokes on the canvas. Ver interesting to see how much his eye sight affected what he saw and how he painted, upon getting glasses that corrected the vision (as much as they could) he was back to painting his pastels and delicate brush strokes.

It was annoying that we couldn’t take photos in the exhibition but totally understandable at the same time.

Instead you have to see some images of Melbourne that I took on the night after we had a bite to eat.

Lovely exhibition and if it is coming to a town near you definitely go and see it.